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Mayor Announces More than $1 Million in Federal Grants to Help End Homelessness in Denver

Mayor John Hickenlooper announced today that Denver will be receiving more than $1 million in federal grant funding to help end homelessness.

Approximately half of the funding - $500,000 - will be awarded to the City’s Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development Services by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. This funding will be used to develop permanent rental housing for the hardest-to-serve homeless individuals who may also be living with a disability, mental illness or an addiction.

“I am tremendously grateful for this funding for Denver,” Mayor Hickenlooper said. “It rewards the efforts of our community-based Commission on Homelessness, which has been working aggressively since November to develop short-term and long-term solutions to the many challenges faced by our homeless residents. We will use this funding to create housing for some of our chronically homeless residents, as a first step in helping them stabilize their lives.”

The other portion of the funding, up to $800,000 over three years, will go to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA grant will enable the Coalition to greatly expand the transitional housing and supportive services they provide for homeless veterans.

"Agencies in Denver have been very successful over the years in getting more than our fair share of federal grants addressing homelessness" said John Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. "With the Denver Homeless Commission in place, we are now in a better position to leverage local funds from the city and the business community."

The Interagency Council on Homelessness, which directs collaboration at the federal level for preventing and ending homelessness, coordinated the grant awards. Combined, the grants are part of $30 million in federal funding awarded to cities across the country to help end homelessness. Denver received the third largest amount, behind only New York and Los Angeles.

Presenting a check to the Mayor and Colorado Coalition for the Homeless President John Parvensky at the announcement were: Philip Mangano, Executive Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness; John Carson, Region VIII Director, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development; Peter Dougherty, director of U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Homeless Programs; and Lawrence Biro, director, U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs Rocky Mountain Network. Members of the Region VIII Interagency Council on Homelessness also attended.

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Posted on Apr 12, 2004 (Archive on May 12, 2004)Posted by chani Contributed by chani